Make a Logo with Shapes

This chapter is from the book

Adobe Illustrator Classroom in a Book 2025 Release

Learn More Buy

This chapter is from the book

This chapter is from the book 

Adobe Illustrator Classroom in a Book 2025 Release

Learn More Buy

LESSON OVERVIEW

In this lesson, you’ll learn how to do the following:

• Create a new document.

• What is a bleed?

• Use tools and commands to create a variety of shapes.

• Understand Live Shapes.

• Create rounded corners.

• Discover other ways to round corners.

• Work with drawing modes.

• Use Image Trace to create shapes.

• Simplify paths.

• Explore Text to Vector Graphic (Beta).

• Gen Shape Fill (Beta).

This lesson will take about 75 minutes to complete. To get the lesson files used in this lesson, download them from the web page for this book at peachpit.com/IllustratorCIB2025. For more information, see “Accessing the lesson files and Web Edition” in the Getting Started section at the beginning of this book.

Creating shapes and editing them are essential to creating Illustrator artwork. In this lesson, you’ll create a new document and then use the shape tools to create and edit a series of shapes for a logo.

Starting the lesson

In this lesson, you’ll explore the different methods for creating artwork by using the shape tools and other methods to create a logo for an adventure company.

1. To make sure that Adobe Illustrator behaves exactly as described in this lesson, reset the Adobe Illustrator preferences. See “Restoring default preferences” in the “Getting Started” section at the beginning of the book.

   NOTE

   If you have not already downloaded the project files for this lesson to your computer from your Account page, make sure to do so now. See the “Getting Started” section at the beginning of the book.

2. Start Adobe Illustrator.

3. Choose File > Open. Open L3_end.ai in the Lessons > Lesson03 folder you copied onto your hard disk.

   

   This file contains the finished illustrations that you’ll create in this lesson.

4. Choose View > Fit Artboard In Window; leave the file open for reference, or choose File > Close.